Braziers International Film Festival

DISSOLVING BOUNDARIES

Negative / Positive Film | Federica Foglia | Canada | 2023 | 14:00
A hand-made, camera-less collage film composed of layers of archival erotic 16mm films, intermingled with nature documentaries and layers of organic materials.

Wild Summon | Karni Arieli & Saul Freed | UK | 2023 | 14:40
A natural history fantasy film, following the dramatic life cycle of the wild salmon in human form, narrated by Marianne Faithfull.

Pigeon Holding | Olivia Dugdale | UK | 2023 | 1:41
explores the relationship between people and birds through a combination of hand drawn animation and photographic collage, centring around the community of pigeon keepers in Glasgow.

Asterión | Francesco Montagner | Czech Republic | 2022 | 15:00
Under the burning sun, a solitary bull awaits tireless, whilst a man jumps deep into the darkest waters of his persona, in their common attempt to defeat death.

The Departing Images | Ana Edwards | Chile | 2023 | 11:11
Between ethnography and reverie, the film enters the in-between spaces of dreams to explore how human and non-human social networks emerge through dreaming in a Mapuche family in the south of Chile.

Sat Aug 31, 11:00

OBSERVED ECOLOGIES

A Nature Documentary | Joel Karppanen | Finland | 2021 | 10:37
Seasons change and decades pass as bears roam in the forest and nature photographers wait at their hides.

Half Life | Laura Iancu | Romania | 2023 | 4:00
Different worlds at different time scales.

Immaterial Terrain | Emily Richardson | UK | 2023 | 7:33
A film made along a seven-mile stretch of the UK coast between Sizewell nuclear power station and the mythic drowned city of Dunwich.

Quadratura | Sara Bonaventura | Italy | 2024 | 3:26
Inspired by dark ecology, a loop of systemic predator-prey models, starting from microscopic beings and passing through plankton, jellyfish, insects, fish, crustaceans and human apex predators.

Square the Circle | Hanna Hovitie | Finland |2023 | 17:26
A little circular film about one person’s round trip out to the (un)known universe and into themselves, in search of a sense of belonging.

The Cavanoids Dance | Vicky Isley & Paul Smith | UK |2022 | 8:32
A troubling sound that has accumulated over many years suddenly stops, in the strange silence that follows, new beings emerge from the depths of Shannon Pot.

Tweed Song | Jane Somers | UK | 2023| 4:14
Moods, sediments, shapes and colours from the River Tweed, filmed in response to improvised music inspired by sounds created by a WaterOrgan.

PERSONAL INTERIORS

Turlock | Aisling Davis | UK | 2024 | 2:51
In the Irish coastal town of Ballyvaughan, disappearing lakes known as ‘Turloch’s’ spring with heavy rain and then recede into the cavernous limestone beneath.

My Exploding House | Liberty Nam-Do Smith | UK | 2024 | 17:11
A quest to find the truth behind a thirty year old memory, along the way connecting the dots between family, community, the power of place and the concept of home.

IMAGE ME | Till Gombert | Germany | 2022 | 5:55
Equates the human face with the image, exposing the merge with our depiction and a mechanics of rotation around our own axis.

There’s Not Much We Can Do | Erica Monde | UK | 2022 | 19:15
A personal essay documentary, in which the director reflects on her journey of getting diagnosed with endometriosis, set to observations of the invasive Japanese Knotweed.

Fitting | Caitlin McMullan | UK | 2022 | 10:51
Explores the relationship between the director, an amputee, and her prosthetist, by their contrasting experiences during the making of a prosthetic leg.

Teeeeth | Fanfan Zhou | USA | 2023 | 1:10
A short film shot on 16mm that examines the role of human teeth in the context of contemporary diets.

ENTANGLED LANDSCAPES

[paˈljit͡sj] | Ania Mokrzycka | UK |2023 |19:07
Building upon Bialowieza Forest’s histories of repression, persecution and destruction, [paˈlʲit͡sʲ] considers common scars shared by its human and non-human inhabitants.

Don’t Ever You Stop Now | Eleanor Capstick | UK | 2023 | 16:18
Follows the director-artist-geographer and mathematician-folk musician through a period of fieldwork; embarking with one question, they returned with something entirely different.

Scenic View | Maija Blåfield | Finland | 2023 | 15:43
Primeval forest has become so rare that it feels fictional: is it now the enchanted forest? Is a commercial forest real? As nature documentaries are staged, are they fiction?

Vibrations from Gaza | Rehab Nazzal | Palestine | 2023 | 16:17
Deaf children in the besieged territory of Gaza, Palestine, recite vivid memories of their experiences of bombardment, destruction and the constant presence of military drones in their skies.

Sat Aug 31, 19:30

SPECIAL FOCUS SCREENING

Foragers | Jumana Manna | Palestine | 2022 | 60:03

‘Foragers’ depicts Palestinian resilience to Israeli laws that ban the picking of wild edible plants ‘akkoub (tumble thistle) and za’atar (thyme), with resulting trials and heavy fines for those caught collecting these native plants. Used as key ingredients in traditional Palestinian cooking over many centuries, the hybrid documentary follows these plants from earth to kitchen as a way to mark the alienation of Palestinians as they are denied historic rights of foraging. With wry humour, the film captures the inherited love, joy and knowledge in these traditions, alongside resistance to Israel’s prohibitive laws and control mechanisms which, under the guise of ecological conservation, seek to further suppress and erase Palestinian history and culture.

Following the screening we’ll share taboon flatbread with Palestinian olive oil and za’atar.

FILM INSTALLATION

Our future, our past, whisper it to me | Charlotte Ginsborg | UK | 2023 | 61:02


‘Our future our past, whisper it to me’ is written by and features residents of North Kent, (UK), who deliver spoken word poetry to camera to express their sense of belonging, home, and their thoughts on the future of the area as it undergoes a period of rapid regeneration. Their powerful performances are captured against the shifting rural and industrial landscapes, the swaths of new-build housing, and epic views out across the Thames Estuary. An inter-generation eulogy, the film looks at the concerns facing post-Brexit, post-pandemic society in the UK. Told through often marginalised voices, the participants are given creative agency to represent their thoughts and feelings as old meets new, and imaginations are encouraged to run free.

About the artist:
Charlotte Ginsborg is a London based film director. Coming from a background in fine art and photography her films combine documentary, fiction and performance to create rich multi-layered portraits of diverse communities and engaging individuals. Working with dance, spoken word and song the films interrogate the complexity of contemporary cities – politically, socially and aesthetically.
‘Our future, our past, whisper it to me’ was commissioned as part of This Must Be The Place, a long-term project working with local people in Ebbsfleet to explore and shape the new garden city as it is built.

RADICAL INSTINCTS

Daphne was a torso ending in leaves | Catriona Gallagher | Greece | 2024 | 13:30
The mythical metamorphosis of the nymph Daphne into a bay-laurel tree is reapproached in contemporary Rome, a landscape once surrounded by native laurel forests and still home to persistent depictions of the woman-tree-symbol in laurel wreaths and festoons.

Horsepolish | Oona Grimes | UK | 2021 | 9:00
De Sica meets Dr Barnardo at the Ragged School Museum: street children – whether of Barnardo or de Sica’s era  – conjure dreams of empowerment & freedom from the reality of their daily Sisyphean task.

On the other side of the spoon | Pierre Borel & Léa Lanoë | France | 2020 | 18:00
This film is a homage to Tristan Honsinger, a singular figure of the experimental music.

Signal and Noise | Jess Shane & Katie Matthews | Canada | 2022 | 13:22
Poet Jordan Scott’s ambient sound recordings of Guantánamo Bay detention camp taken to bypass its strict media censorship rules, are set against former detainee Mansoor Adayfi’s recollections of how sound shaped his experience there.